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Hi there,

so I've been wondering how old a dark eldar can get with his soul intact.

We have Asdrubael Vect claiming that he's been around at the Fall and founding the Black Heart Kabal in M32 making him 10k+ years old.

Dark eldar need more pain and bloodshed to stay young the older they get. So Asdrubael Vect must use thousands of slaves per day to get the needed suffering. This could get problematic when he needs more slaves than there is space on his dais

How old can a dark eldar get with his soul intact using pain, bloodshed and slaughter of non-special characters?

He doesn't slaughter slaves. Not all of the time, anyway. War brings far more pain and suffering than the killing of slaves.

A Dark Eldar can theoretically become immortal in this way.

WAIT, Since when where DE immortal?
I thought the DE now where ancestors of the original DE.

Nope. They can become "immortal" by being around pain and suffering. As long as there is pain, they will live. The oldest have lived since before the Fall. Asdrubael Vect is not the oldest, but he is is among the oldest DE.

They are basically Vampires, but instead of blood, they feed off of the pain and suffering of others.

The heamonculi are supposedly all ancient, possibly predating the fall. They may have (not confirmed iirc) been the ones that started the pleasure cults that caused the fall.

Some of the older Archons are mentioned as remembering the fall.

Urien is ancient even by haemonculi standards, iirc.

True Stories, Space Vampires, that hopefully don't glitter.

I think glittering is a good way to get yourself killed in Commorragh.

They don't glitter.

Glittering requires sunlight.

The Dark City has no sun. It is lit by blacklight which shines with a darkness that even emo tortured souls have trouble describing.

Thank you for your answers. But as the older dark eldar need more pain the older they get - I remember a story when one archon slaughters an entire planets' population to replenish himself - there must be some sort of a limit when even constant slaughtering of planets' populations isn't enough anymore. At what age do you think, this limitation is reached? 15k? 25k? 100k?
According to the novel 'Path of the renegade', Commoragh has several suns.

The have stolen suns in the codex too.

Glittering is a capital crime

The Dark City has no sun. It is lit by blacklight which shines with a darkness that even emo tortured souls have trouble describing.

Um... purple?

Grimmzahn wrote:Thank you for your answers. But as the older dark eldar need more pain the older they get - I remember a story when one archon slaughters an entire planets' population to replenish himself - there must be some sort of a limit when even constant slaughtering of planets' populations isn't enough anymore. At what age do you think, this limitation is reached? 15k? 25k? 100k?
According to the novel 'Path of the renegade', Commoragh has several suns.

Spoiler:

(p.43) One of the Ilmaea, Commoragh's captive suns, was casting a poisonous light through the wide embrasures of the archon's audience chamber as it slowly died in its distant sub-realm high above.

well, Asdrubael Vect's entry mentions that he may be reaching the point where he simply cannot replensih/regenerate. The fact that it is mentioned as being a possibility means that it has happened before. I would suspect that it'd be around 35000 years before this happens, though. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see an Archon (and kabal) go on a rampage in realspace and kill an entire system as a last ditch effort to save himself.

However, there would be a war around that: go to the Octarius system, where the Orks and Tyranids are locked in combat that spans the entire system and perhaps sector. Just webway onto a planet, regen, and leave.

^^ Well theres pain in the Octarius system but both Orkz are too manly/awesome/enjoying fighting in the war too much to suffer, and I think Tyranid dont even comprehend suffering, they just fight till they die.

No, I think they'll need to go for a nice hive city population....

Grimmzahn wrote:Hi there,

so I've been wondering how old a dark eldar can get with his soul intact.

We have Asdrubael Vect claiming that he's been around at the Fall and founding the Black Heart Kabal in M32 making him 10k+ years old.

Dark eldar need more pain and bloodshed to stay young the older they get. So Asdrubael Vect must use thousands of slaves per day to get the needed suffering. This could get problematic when he needs more slaves than there is space on his dais

Spoiler:

(maybe with the exception of a few worldsingers as pain-brides). Idea taken from novel 'Path of the renegade'.

How old can a dark eldar get with his soul intact using pain, bloodshed and slaughter of non-special characters?

Indefinitely. They can do it forever.

however as they age or as they become more powerful it takes more and more pain to regenerate them.